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Cleaning Stucco With a Pressure Washer

Stone walls, brick and standard siding are all common ways to decorate the house but stucco is an excellent alternative to all this if you know how to keep it clean.

Stucco usually has a textured surface and this allows dirt, grime and dust to settle down all over the surface. What starts off as a beautiful surface soon disintegrates with weeks of dust piling over each other. Thankfully, having a pressure washer around works wonders as it blasts past any kind of build-up that may develop on your stuccoed wall.

Repair Any Crack

Before doing any power washing, you need to make sure there aren’t any cracks or chips in the stucco. If there are, water can seep through them, potentially leading to structural damage down the line.

All cracks and chips should be patched and given enough time to dry. You should let patches dry for about a week.

Dealing With Rust And Heavy Stains

For heavily stained regions, a rotating scrub brush works great as it helps in freeing up dirt and grime before the pressure washer’s force blows them away. Choose a quality brush for this purpose as the better the quality, the faster the job gets done. For rust, you will have to scrub it by hand removing it slowly as you go since rust and water really don’t go well.

Spray It All Away

Set your pressure washer at a setting of between 1,500 and 2,500 PSI and test it on an inconspicuous area of the stucco before you use it on your surface. This will let you know if the PSI needs to be adjusted down without damaging visible areas. Keep the tip of the pressure washer about 2 to 2 ½ feet away from the wall and hold the wand so that the water stream is angled, hitting the stucco at around a 45 degree angle to avoid damage. Rinse the detergent away, working in sections and moving from the top down. Work around your windows, as a pressure washer may damage them.

Start from the same point you did when applying detergent, then work your way in the same direction. Clean one section at a time, and be sure to overlap slightly to avoid missing anything. Unlike the bottom-up approach you take when applying detergent, start rinsing from the top and work your way down.

The dirt and detergent will run down the surface of the wall, so a downward rinse will keep the soapy filth moving in the direction you want it to. When you’re finished, gently rinse the surrounding foliage with clean water to dilute and flush away any lingering detergent.